Google Chrome Is Out of Beta 444
BitZtream writes "This morning Google announced that Chrome is out of Beta, and showing improvements for plugin support, most notably video speed improvements. It also contains an updated javascript engine, claiming that it operates 1.4 times faster than the beta version, and work has begun on an extensions platform to allow easier integration with the browser by third parties."
Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sorry, I can not conceive the internet any more without add-block...
That's nice... (Score:1, Insightful)
What about Gmail?
OEM deals (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Google is trying to work out deals with OEM's to bundle Chrome on Windows PC's. Obviously, they can't do this while the browser still carries the "beta" tag, which is akin to a scarlet letter.
It's interesting they chose to drop out of "beta" before they implemented one of their supposed top features, namely, cross-platform compatibility.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
We are also developing an extensions platform along with support for Mac and Linux.
Bingo. When it reaches the functionality of Firefox I'll be the first to get it. It will give FireFox a run for its money.
almost (Score:1, Insightful)
Now to just get gmail out of beta...
Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:2, Insightful)
Stopgap measure: Make a symlink/shortcut from Downloads directory to the desired location. Repeated navigation is less daunting.
Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
The WebKit team and anyone who ever contributed to it should also get praise. Without it Chrome would never have seen the light of day. Google Chrome is essentially Google's chrome around the rendering engine and any tweaks they provided to WebKit.
No Linux support? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OEM deals (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they'll have separate betas for the Mac and Linux versions.
Re:But does it run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
> b) I can easily correct my error if I accidentally close a tab
When you open a new tab, a list of recently closed tabs is available.
Aside from that, and it's been covered all over this post, they've publicly stated that they are working on Mac and Linux versions, as well as an add-on framework.
Most importantly, nobody is forcing you to use Chrome. If your list of requirements is absolute, then just don't use it. Simple.
Re:But does it run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer Firefox (3) and am a Firefox user, but as a web developer, I have observed that Chrome is faster and more efficient. You can see it more clearly in certain, more complex rendering situations - For example, text scrolling on top of a fixed background image.
Personally, what I miss in Chrome (more than the menu bar) is the status bar. I like hovering the mouse pointer above links and quickly seeing what they all do before I actually click them. I also can't understand the absence of the stop button. I know I can press escape, but it's not exactly a feature that should be that hidden.
Chrome is out of beta after less than a year (Score:0, Insightful)
...and yet GMail isn't after how long?
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, however "going to" isn't "already support".
Re:just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have expected somebody to stand up at a meeting and go "Hey, lets merge the products and save money!" at some point, especially in this growing economic hole (didn't Sun just do a huge layoff, too?)
Meanwhile Gmail is still in beta (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FF for Linux does suck quite a lot. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop telling everyone about it! I want slashdot to remain free.
Re:What Chrome still needs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that someone will make a plug-in to block the advertising, but considering that Google is an advertising company that sells web ads as their life blood, I can't see them offering ad-blocking in their own product out of the box. Unless it blocks all ads save for the ones from Google.
It isn't going to replace Opera on my desktop anytime soon, but then again, they'd have to release versions for Mac, Linux, and FreeBSD for it even to run on any of my desktops.
Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:5, Insightful)
If your security policy relies on users not being able to install software but the users can install software, you have a problem; not Google.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
But, as your parent stated, that is very redundant and dosen't make much sense, especially as the companies are clearly suffering(Sun's layoffs vs. GM's bailout).
Re:Neat - Mac OS X ? Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you mean, it was written properly and doesn't require admin rights. So assuming you've properly configured your PC and network this software is not a major threat since it never needs to elevate itself to admin status. It can still damage files and network resources your user has access to, but thats generally far less damaging than taking over the entire PC and effective any user that logs into it or any network resource it has access to.
Your comment is extremely ignorant and indicates that you have no clue about being a network or systems admin. You can run firefox on any windows machine that has a writable directory on it, same for almost all properly written software. Good luck running a windows PC without a writable directory some where, you'll break to many legitimate apps.
So if your idea of 'security' is because the 'installer' doesnt write to any other directory than the 'program files' directory, then you have no security at all. What do you do about the people who install software on their own PC at home then just copy the files to a USB drive, bring it to your network and copy those files to the %TEMP% directory, or their %USERPROFILE% or %APPDATA% directories, all of which you will typically have write access to?
Google isn't going to 'fix' this 'issue' because the 'issue' is with the person who thinks a flaw, no amount of complaining to anyone is going to help you, all the people you would be complaining to have about a billtion times more of a clue than you do about the 'issue'.
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Vauxhall Astra
Opel Astra
Chevy Astra
Saturn Astra
Holden Astra
QED
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:2, Insightful)
As it turns out, Chrome has an automatic updater that runs in the background. The browser is constantly and silently upgrading itself as the Chrome team push out new updates. The results are quite impressive.
That must be why I keep killing that friggin process:
firefox 2016 8 29 767 133972 2:06:20.690 32:21:37.471
GoogleUpdate 764 8 6 66 1836 0:00:00.460 30:24:23.987
Re:Attn: Network admins Security issue (Score:3, Insightful)
He's pointing out a bug in the installer.
The default for executable code is in program files. If a user wants to move it and they have permissions to do so then there's nothing stopping them.. but defaulting to the user profile is just plain wrong. Home users will have write access to the program files directory anyway. Business users (if they have permission to install things) will probably have quotas on their roaming profiles and this could send them over, using up valuable IT support time.
Re:Out of beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:just what we need (Score:4, Insightful)
They use it as a vehicle to implement web standards, under a license that allows any other browsers to adopt the improvements. Thus the web improves, which directly benefits Google (as well as others)
Re:Addons (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird, why was this moderated Funny?
I assume all you guys that run AdBlock realise that ads keep these websites free. I'm happy to absorb a few ads in the interests of getting free content.
Yes, sometimes they slow page loads, yes, sometimes they're annoying, but they keep sites free.
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone else, thanks to the KDE team. It looks like Apple and Google names shadow the developpers behind KHTML, but WebKit would probably never have existed as it is now without KHTML.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
"That must be why I keep killing that friggin process"
Indeed, im generally "ok" with an application that has some background nonsense I have to kill, but "GoogleUpdate.exe" refuses to go away until you delete the damn thing, there seems to be no way of disabling it via Chrome itself.
Pointless comment, but for me its a major reason why I don't use it, the only thing I give them credit for about it, is not naming it some obfuscated nonsense like guu.exe
Re:just what we need (Score:3, Insightful)
Google supports both because regardless of Chrome or Firefox, as long as either 'wins' it is Google's gain for their search business.
This is along the same lines as Best Buy and Futureshop in Canada. They're both owned by Best Buy in the back end, but allowing the guise of choice makes customers comfortable with buying from each of them.
OpenOffice and StarOffice are more along the lines of MyProductBasic and MyProductAdvanced. By getting people into the free version, one can encourage buyers to upgrade to star when there's enough productivity/feature advantage to do so.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Addons (Score:2, Insightful)
I assume all you guys that run AdBlock realise that ads keep these websites free. I'm happy to absorb a few ads in the interests of getting free content.
Sure, we guys who run AdBlock realize ads keep some sites free. Let them keep their ads. We'll keep control over our browsing experience. Seems fair to me.
an open source browser on Linux? I think not. (Score:1, Insightful)
Skype and Opera (who arent open source companies) offers their software for Linux, Google doesnt.
Im just happy its not the other way around.
I can live without a choice of browser or two but I cant live without Skype.
I have no problem when proprietary companies dont offer me a choice on my OS of choice but I have no problems supporting the ones like Skype and Opera who do over the ones that dont.
Yup, Chrome on Windows is quick but thats not enough to get rid of my FF and Opera.
scrolling is still spastic (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand. I set the mousewheel(er, touchpad scroll speed) in Windows, and Chrome insists on going at its own speed for scrolling. I scroll x lines with the zone, and it does page up/page down increments. What the hell?
Re:Addons (Score:2, Insightful)
Ads don't keep websites free. They generate a bit of money for the owners of the website. Websites were around before banner ads.
Yea, bro. Ads don't keep websites free. Their owners do. Oh wait....
Somebody's got to foot the bills especially when you're getting slashdotted 24/7.
They survive even now, despite the fact that just about everybody blocks ads.
Last checked quite a bit of people are still using IE and I think it's fair to assume most of them don't have an ad blocker.
You're the same kind of person who claims that watching TV but going to take a whiz during commercials is stealing.
Yea, I bet GP is a fat 40 years old virgin who still lives with his parents and has 3 level 80 WOW toons.
Re:Addons (Score:4, Insightful)
Citation please? More likely you're simply pulling it out of thin air. Nobody I know blocks in-page (versus popup) advertising, and having worked for a digital advertising agency (I didn't do any banner ads, so I'm not apologizing!) and hearing the kinds of numbers they get I feel pretty safe in calling this out as the nonsense it is. If "just about everybody" is blocking them, then those handful of people who aren't sure interact with the ads an awful lot, and they hit refresh the page an awful lot to download them again.
And you're the kind of person who makes a shitty analogy and then tries to bash somebody with it. Nobody claimed it was stealing. Not on this site. Broadcasting a TV signal costs the same amount of money whether one person tunes it in or one hundred million do. And for that matter, it costs the same whether 0% or 100% of the sets tuned in have anybody watching them. Moreover, the TV stations get paid the same amount of money whether you actually watch the ads or not.
The Internet doesn't work that way. The get paid based on impression or click-through. Worse, every time you visit a website you cost the person hosting it money either directly or by using a finite resource. Many choose to foot the bill and not use advertisements, you're right about that; I'm one of them. Those who don't are making a clear and conscious choice, one which should be respected. You do not have some inalienable right to view their content. In the case of ads they're making a trade with you, and you're welching on your part of the deal. Do it if that's who you are, I'm not your mother, but don't make bullshit excuses and shitty analogies to try to pretend that blocking their ads and taking their bandwidth doesn't directly affect their wallet line. Twice.
Of course given the fact that you've already been modded into oblivion so many times your posts start at zero, I'm not sure why I'm taking the time to feed the trolls.
Re:Don't forget the WebKit team (Score:3, Insightful)
What about KHTML team who did all the original work? Everyone forgot them already? :)
Re:just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about the Monty Hall paradox. It's a loose comparison, but work with me. If your customers are just comparing between Ford and Chevy, and your products are equal, you get 50% of the market, all things equal. If you introduce a new brand, let's call it GMC, some of the customers who might have chosen Ford might choose GMC. Since all you have to change is the 1 dollar name plate, it's a good deal.
This is how GM has run their business for 75 years.
Re:Addons (Score:3, Insightful)